Ex-Salvadoran general linked to rights abuse in US custody

March 27, 2015

MIAMI (AP) — Immigration officials say a former El Salvadoran general linked to 1980s human rights abuses has been taken into U.S. immigration custody pending final deportation orders.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Tammy Spicer confirmed Friday that former Gen. Eugenio Vides Casanova is in the agency’s custody. Vides Casanova has been living in Florida since 1989.

The nation’s highest immigration court earlier this month ruled that Vides Casanova should be deported to El Salvador. Vides Casanova’s lawyer Diego Handel says that order will be appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Vides Casanova was his country’s defense minister and has been linked to multiple acts of killings and torture committed by the Salvadoran military, including the slayings of three American nuns and a lay churchwoman in 1980.